Identification systems are commonly used to identify an item, such as a place, or a location. The most commonly used identification system is the naming system. Each place or location may have its own name, such as a store name or a street name. The naming system is very effective at a local level. However, at a larger level, such as at national or global level, it is very often too imprecise to be very useful. For example, many stores across a nation may have the same name. Many streets in different cities may have the same name. When you just have the information of the name, it will be impossible to pinpoint precisely which place, which location you are referring to. The same is also true with respect to products and services and many other kinds of items that need to be identified.
One possible solution is to assign a unique identifier to each item that needs to be identified. There can be a database that stores all the assigned identifiers and their associated items. Once a unique identifier is obtained, the database will be able to retrieve the specific information for the particular item associated with this unique identifier. A unique identifier, for example the unique internet web address associated with a particular product or place, can be printed on a picture showing an item, such as a product or a place. Once someone sees the product or the place, the person can take a picture of the unique identifier, such as the unique internet web address. Once the internet web address is obtained, the user can then use the internet web address to obtain special information stored at such internet web address associated specifically with such product or place. This is a much more precise method to identify a specific item. If someone simply types a name into an internet search engine such as Google, this person will likely receive vast amount of unrelated information. Using the unique identifier system avoids such issue and greatly improves efficiency.
There are certain issues associated with the unique identifier system. The unique identifier, which could be any identifying symbol such as a serial number, a web address, or an encoded symbol, usually is not very visually appealing. In an advertisement environment, visually appealing is very important. For example, a company may be spending millions of dollars to produce very attractive pictures of its products, and display such beautiful pictures at prominent locations to attract attention. Such company may not want to print very large serial numbers or web addresses across such pictures, because if it does so, these pictures may no longer be visually appealing. However, if it does not do so, there may not be a convenient and precise method to convey specific information created for such products directly to the viewers of the pictures.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and method to uniquely identify items including products and places for efficient information retrieval without being visually intrusive.